In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

BY SAIRA HUSSAIN

Magazine:

To create the magazine front cover we carried out loads of research into real media texts. We did this in order to make sure my group and I were aware of the codes and conventions of a real media magazine so we can make our magazine look realistic. We looked at ‘EMPIRE’ and ‘FANGLORIA’, ‘SCREAM’ horror magazines but we chose the ‘EMPIRE’ magazine as inspiration to create our magazine.

Magazine:

Magazine: Mast Head

We wanted to use the Empire name as Empire magazine is a well known horror magazine and is recognisable by many people.

We used similar masthead text to to make the magazine stand out and to grab the readers attention. By having a bold red title we wanted to emphasise death, blood, fear and terror also in our trailer however red is a constant house colour in our trailer, poster therefore by having the same colour to have everything linked together. We also wanted the image used to cover a bit of the mast head as this shows that the magazine is a popular magazine as audience recognises the magazine easily.

Magazine: Image

Similar to the empire magazine the image is placed in the centre. We also chose to use our main character in the film to give the audience an idea who the main character is and to grab their attention and by having the image placed in the centre which helps the audience to focus on the character. We challenged this because we wanted to have our image in black and white as our film is a horror and thriller therefore by having it presented in black and white and using dark colours links back to our genre.

Magazine: Mise-en-scene

The clothing the actor Is wearing is a plain shirt, she wore this because we wanted to portray her as a innocent and vulnerable.

The lighting is varied between dark and light. We chose to have dark lighting because dark colours are mainly used in the horror genre therefore to link back to our genre we used dark lighting to give this effect however we didn’t want it to be too dark because we wanted the audience to see the text on the magazine.

Magazine: Straplines

Above the mast head in-between the ‘m’ we wanted to keep this convention so people are aware of the price and the issue of the magazine. Underneath the mast head on the top right side we also kept this convention of having the website of the magazine here. On the left hand side we added ‘the worlds biggest movie magazine’ to empathise how popular the magazine is to the audience. We also added more straplines onto the left middle side of the magazine which is similar to the real empire magazine. We have used straplines such as ‘top 10 horror releases’ to attract the audience who are interested in tis genre. Also we added more straplines on the right hand side because the magazine had seemed empty therefore by adding ‘after 10 years seed of chucky returns’ related to the horror/thriller genre this will draw attention of those who are interested in this genre which will also attract our target audience. At the bottom of the magazine we used an convention from empire by having ‘turn to page 6 to see the full picture’ this makes our magazine look like a real movie magazine.

Magazine: Film title and barcode

We wanted our film title to be in the middle but we aligned it to the right hand side. We chose to have it this way as it made our magazine stand out more and to be more unique.

We placed our barcode very similar to the empire magazine therefore by putting a barcode similar to empire magazine made our magazine look like a real media text.

Magazine/poster/trailer:

The main colours we have used in our magazine are red, white and black. We used red to connote rage, anger, blood in our film. We also used white to connote innocent, purity of the girls character in our trailer and black to associate with death, mystery and evil. We chose these colours to match our house style of the poster and trailer and to fit in the codes and conventions of a horror genre film.

Poster

Poster:

Before creating our poster we looked at and analysed real film posters.

Poster: Image

The image we took was close up of the actors lip, hand and neck. We chose to do this as it links to our strapline ‘The truth will be revealed’ By having her finger over her mouth suggests that nothing is being revealed about what happens therefore you have to watch the movie to find out. Like other movie posters the main image is in placed in the centre which makes our poster look. We added the scratch effect to create some tension for the audience and make them asking questions as to why is has been scratched etc.

Poster:Mise-en-scene

The clothing is shown vey little in this poster as it is a close up but you can that the actor is wearing a white vest.

The actor is wearing red lipstick to make her lips stand out from the poster and to grab the audiences attention.

The lighting is very dark this fits in with the codes and conventions of a real movie poster

Poster: Straplines/taglines and Title

We included the actors names at the top of the poster so the audience will recognise the actors this will grab there attention as if it is there favourite actor they will come to watch the movie.

We had the title in big bold white writing which is place also at the top. Most movie posters had the name of the film at the bottom but on our poster it didn’t look right therefore we put the title at the top.

We included the tagline ‘the truth to be revealed at the bottom to make everything link together and to make our poster look like a real movie poster. Also at the bottom of the poster you see the directors names, writers and producers name we used this convention to make our poster like a real poster also so the audience can recognise them and if they like the producer or director or writer this will make them want to watch the movie.

Trailer

Before creating our trailer we looked at many different trailers and analysed them.

Trailer

We started of by analysing many different horror and thriller trailers to help us identify what the codes and conventions are. By watching numerous amounts of trailers this helped us to create our narrative. The trailer narrative was shown in a non-linear way as the audience are not able to tell what the whole plot is about as we don’t want to give it away.

Trailer

By going through our narrative structure we looked at Vladimir's Propps theory to help us create our narrative structure. He created 7 characters each with a specific role such as the villain, the dispatcher, the helper, the princess, the donor, the hero and the false hero. We used his theory to help us develop our narrative and to help us meet the codes and conventions of a horror genre film. We chose each character and what they are, this helped us with our plot even more as we then came up with more ideas about having loads of villains and by having a false hero in our plot. However we got inspiration from our plot from a movie called ‘sorority row’. So we borrowed ideas from there trailer.

Trailer

Our trailer was set in many different locations such as the woods, a house and a basement. We used these locations as they were dark and very gloomy also for us to portray horror films and suspense we thought by having a dark location will attract the audience and also fit it into the codes and conventions of a horror film.

Rick Altman's theory can be applied to our trailer as we used syntactic elements such as fear, this is shown throughout the trailer as you have the girl walking though the woods and she thinks someone is following her also we used a close up of a boy attacking the girl coming from behind. This creates tension and fear.

Trailer - clothing

By looking at other trailers we discovered that the actors were wearing very casual clothing , therefore to make our trailer look realistic we decided that our actors should wear casual everyday clothes however we also used quite dark clothing for the boys to make them look evil.

Trailer- Lighting

All trailers we had analysed used dark, dull lighting to create a gloomy atmosphere. We used dark lighting to create a tension, scary effect also to make our trailer more realistic. Dark lighting connotes that something bad could happen which creates the tension and suspense. However we used daylight in our trailer too to show some action which had happened in the day.

Trailer-

In horror trailers there was loads of action shots to create and build suspense. We added a few action shots in our trailer such as the boy coming behind the girl and attacking her however we didn’t want to give lots of information away.

We used a lot of editing techniques such as fades to black which then had a inter title and fast pace. We used this techniques so create tension because we didn’t want to give the plot away and we wanted to leave the audience guessing. This followed the codes and conventions of a horror genre as by speeding our shots up and by having fades to black made it look more realistic.

Trailer

We used quite a lot of diegetic sound such as the boys talking, the girl screaming. This made it look more realistic as it showed what was really happening and created a effect on the audience to get them feeling scared. We also non-diegetic sound such as the music playing in the background, this helped to build the tension throughout the trailer.